


a million moments with you

by The_Real_Squoose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Christmas fic, Established Relationship, Everything Christmas, Fluff, Hogwarts AU, I will never stop with the Hogwarts AUs muahaha, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21957937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Real_Squoose/pseuds/The_Real_Squoose
Summary: The Gangsey stays at Hogwarts for Christmas. Adam and Ronan grow closer throughout the chaos. Ronan has a lot of secrets he wants his boyfriend to know-- ranging from the fact that he can pull things from his dreams, to the just as important fact that he’s sappy as hell. Adam is happy for every moment with the people he loves most.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent (minor), Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 7
Kudos: 130





	a million moments with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thealmostrhetoricalquestion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/gifts).



> Gifted to: the wonderful writer whose piece finally pushed me to finish this AU, and just in time for Christmas!

_A Brief History of Apparation_

_The practice began--_

“Adam. Adam. Adam Parrish.”

The quill paused midair, clutched tightly between Adam’s fingers. The Great Hall buzzed quietly around them, students sitting down for lunch after those going home for the holidays had already left. It was more peaceful than most days-- enough so for him to write out here instead of holed up in his dorm, or the Slytherin Common Room. He hadn’t accounted for Blue.

He’d barely managed to start, and already Blue was leaning over his parchment, poking his cheek. Her Gryffindor scarf smeared through fresh ink.

“Hi,” she said, grinning. He shook his head and pushed her back by the shoulders. Blue settled back onto her side of the table. “What are you doing today?”

He frowned at the inkblots that used to be words. “Finishing my essay?”

“Wrong answer.” She scanned the stains on her scarf and shrugged, tossing it back over her shoulder. “You’re coming with me! I’m dragging all of you outside.”

On either side of her, Gansey and Noah sat, with Ronan not bothering to appear since breakfast. Noah happily folded scraps of Adam’s parchment into tiny crumpled fortune tellers, and Gansey stared down at a book with a cup of tea in his hand, hovering inches from his mouth. Blue elbowed Gansey.

“Hmm?” He didn’t look up.

“I’m putting a ban on Glendower until after break,” Blue said.

His reaction was immediate. “But you can’t!”

“Put the book away,” Blue ordered. “And you, Adam-- at least wait until after Christmas to work.”

Adam was prepared to say a million things about needing to do his work, but none of them were necessary, for at that moment the two of them launched into a debate. Gansey insisting this was the best time to look, now that the students were gone. Blue insisting, _but it’s Christmas!_

He turned back to his essay and started again, below the streaks of ink. Something solid and shiny landed on his parchment. A bar of chocolate.

“What?” Adam said, glancing up. None other than Ronan Lynch stood over him, face painted in his usual boredom. Dressed in Quidditch gear, his broom laid across his shoulders. His face and shaved head gleamed just slightly with sweat.

“It’s a game,” he said. “Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, or normal chocolate.”

Adam stared at the purple foil. “Deadly poison, or white chocolate? Plot twist-- they’re the same thing.” 

Ronan had a way of playing off his gifts as anything but. It made them easier to accept. 

“I have to live to Christmas,” Adam told him, “or Blue will kill you herself.”

“It’s only a little cyanide,” Ronan said, swinging onto the bench next to Adam. All open limbs, drawing attention and pushing easily into Adam’s space. Their knees pressed together under the table, though Ronan was looking to Gansey now. He leaned his broom against the bench and slung an arm around Adam’s shoulders forcefully enough to nearly dip Adam’s face into his ink.

Adam jabbed a finger into Ronan’s side, and he smirked.

“You want to fly today?” Ronan asked Gansey. “Or you, gremlin. Might be good practice, knocking you off your broom.”

“As if,” Blue said.

Gansey paused in his long-winded retort to Blue about how critical the cave systems around Hogwarts were. He blinked owlishly and fixed his glasses. “You already flew.”

“We’re playing in the snow,” Blue cut in, chin jutting up.

“ _Fun.”_

“Ask Parrish,” Gansey said.

Adam waited for him to speak. Ronan scoffed and stole Adam’s goblet of pumpkin juice. From this angle, Adam could see the edges of Ronan’s tattoo curling up above the collar of his robes. They shifted and danced, like tentacles waving and knives slashing in warning. Adam slowly picked up the chocolate bar, turning it over in his hands.

Ronan was an impossible thing to decipher.

At some point between the time when Blue had broken up with him (fourth year) and today, things had changed between them. They had landed at some point between friends, best friends, and lovers-- as strange as the later one was to say. Or think about. And then Adam had kissed him, and Ronan said he’d fancied him for a long, long time, and at some point, they’d definitively landed in the space of ‘lovers’.

Ronan Lynch, all sharp looks and sharper words, had been hard to imagine as affectionate. As in love, or even fancying someone. But even before this, Adam had learned that Ronan loved, and he loved hard. He poured everything he had into it-- and Adam had finally understood why Ronan was a Hufflepuff.

And. Well. Here they were. Adam and Ronan, Ronan and Adam. They still hadn’t told the others. Ronan said they could figure it out whenever they pleased.

“I could use the practice,” Adam said. “If you’re up for losing a race or two.”

Ronan stared intently down at a piece of toast he was ripping to small strips. But something shifted. His body ever so slightly angled toward Adam. He nodded once. It clicked that Ronan was only waiting for him to make the first move.

Then Ronan’s signature smirk was back, and he turned it to Adam. “Prepare to eat my dust.”

  
  


Once upon a time, Adam Parrish had been afraid of heights. And deep water. And deep forests. And deep conversations, too-- he ran from them every time.

Once upon a time, Adam Parrish had made a sacrifice. He’d gone out to the Forbidden Forest at night and pledged himself as the hands and eyes of the stuttering ley line. The one that ran under Hogwarts, and had been steadily weakening in jolts and falls over the years, removing centuries’-old spells and protection charms.

Once upon a time, Adam Parrish fixed it.

And since that time, he was never the same.

He didn’t have much to be afraid of anymore-- the ley line protected him in all things. And now that he was seventeen, after a fateful night where he’d come home late and his father hit him and Ronan hit his father, he could finally live on his own. Another fear he could push to the back of his mind.

His broom spun dizzily through the air, the ground far below him. Adam wasn’t afraid anymore.

Ronan zoomed by on his broom, a sleek black model more expensive than Adam’s entire closet. Adam chased him, whooping and laughing as Ronan led him to weave between the Quidditch stands and shoot towards the ground. Only pulling up at the last moment.

Wind whipped his hair against his face. A chill set into his bones. A thrill in his heart. Flying never failed to make Adam feel invincible. Like he could do anything-- and like the real world was some far away, distant shore that couldn’t touch him.

On the last downward tip, Ronan started low to the ground, and kept shooting forward. Adam flew next to him, closer and closer by the second. They reached out their hands and clapped each other’s shoulders, grinning, and Ronan kept going. Adam followed him down until they were forced to roll off their brooms onto the ground, lest they hit it head-on.

Adam landed in an ungraceful heap, laughing breathlessly. Ronan managed to pull off some rolling landing and come up on his knees again.

“I hate you,” Adam gasped. Dirt in his hair, damp grass between his fingers. Melted snow turned the ground slushy and cold below him, while Ronan had avoided the streaks of wet and cold with his far more successful landing. Ronan gave him a grin that dove into Adam’s heart, forced it to skip a beat, then danced back out of reach.

Ronan held his hand out for Adam. He took it, and dragged Ronan down with him. A sharp bark of laughter escaped him as he went down, landing over Adam heavily. For a moment a crushing weight, then a welcome one as he propped himself up on his elbows. Warm and solid and familiar. He pressed Adam down with a kiss, smirking against his mouth.

Adam’s heart held a staccato beat. A combination of flying and kissing and everything Ronan. He tried to move his hands, but one was trapped against his chest. Ronan pinned his free one at the wrist just as he started to move.

“What?” Adam panted, when Ronan pulled away. Ronan ran a finger along his temple to his ear in soaking wet gloves, and Adam squirmed.

“You should use the team brooms,” Ronan said casually. Adam refused to use the expensive Slytherin brooms unless he was in an official match. “That would at least give you a chance.”

“You killed the mood,” Adam said. “You massacred it.”

Ronan arched a brow. Adam fought the desire to kiss him that surged up whenever Ronan pulled that face. _Fuck it,_ he thought. Adam leaned up, and Ronan leaned down. A bare few inches between their faces. It was more natural than breathing to close the gap.

Every time felt like the first. The world narrowed down to the points of contact between them-- everywhere, in this case-- and every movement of Ronan’s lips against his. He tasted like pumpkin juice and chocolate, both of which he’d swiped from Adam less than an hour ago.

He was content to kiss Ronan until the lack of air made him lightheaded, but Ronan pulled away. He flopped on his back next to Adam, their shoulders pressed together.

“I’ll get a new one when I’m older,” Adam said, holding the broom up above his face. He wished he’d worn Quidditch gloves instead of the ones Blue had knitted him-- he could feel splinters from it in the creases of his hands. “I’ll be a Quidditch player _and_ a magickal lawyer.”

Ronan rolled his head towards Adam. “That’s not professional.”

“ _Go for your dreams,”_ Adam said dramatically, repeating what the career counselor had told him. “But also, be reasonable. Are you really going to be a farmer?”

He watched clouds march across the grey-blue sky. The Slytherin stand peeked into the corner of his vision. Adam had tried out for Chaser in third year, and failed. Ronan had made it in the Hufflepuff team in second year, and he’d been happy to remind Adam that even as he helped him practice to get on the team.

They’d gone to the pitch every weekend. Adam was determined, and Ronan was relentless in his efforts to crush him (helpfully, in the end). Over the summer, they spent weeks at Gansey’s house: Blue, Ronan, and him. Noah hadn’t been able to leave Hogwarts until after the ley line fiasco, but between the three Quidditch players challenging Adam at every turn, he’d learned. Mock matches and drilling with Ronan nearly every day. By fourth year, he’d easily gotten the spot. 

Gansey proudly said it was his Slytherin ambition. Blue backed it up much more wryly. Ronan refused to take Adam’s thank-you’s.

“I’ll be a Quidditch player _and_ a magickal farmer,” Ronan said. Adam dropped his broom on Ronan’s chest. He turned his face toward Ronan, but now he was the one looking up. Searching the skies like it held answers.

“What are you thinking about?” Adam whispered. He rolled up on one elbow, half his body lined up against Ronan’s. He radiated enough warmth to combat the slush-induced chill. 

Ronan closed his eyes. So relaxed he looked asleep. “The Barns.”

The Lynch household, a few miles away from Godric’s Hollow. Ronan and his brothers hadn’t been allowed to step foot in it for years.

“You’ll be able to live there one day, right?”

Ronan nodded minutely. “When I graduate. Maybe.”

Adam propped his temple on his fist and fiddled with the strings on Ronan’s robes. He let the silence stretch on. Gears turned in Ronan’s head.

“Come on, I can see the steam coming out your ears,” Adam said.

Ronan’s eyes cracked open. “I sent a letter to my mum last Sunday. Didn’t get one back. I’ve sent one every week for--. She stopped answering in second year."

It was so abruptly honest that it cut to Adam’s core. His mind blanked. He smoothed out creases over Ronan’s shoulder and tried to breathe. Tried to think.

“There must be a good reason,” Adam said slowly. Ronan caught his wrist.

“I want to go home,” Ronan said in a rush. “Come with me? We can do it tonight. Just to see it.”

“Ronan--”

“Just to see it.”

Ronan’s face fell open. Adam memorized every detail of this moment-- another piece of the puzzle Ronan handed over. He trusted Adam not to shatter him. And he knew, in that moment, that if he told Ronan not to go, he wouldn’t. He was telling Adam so he could be a sounding board. The one to tell him when his ideas would fail him.

But Ronan deserved a good home. He deserved the bright, happy, place it seemed to be in his memories. The way he talked about the Barns, the way he held it close to his heart, Adam knew it meant so much more than some trailer or double-wide out in fuck-nowhere had ever meant to him. It had been a real home, and Ronan deserved that. He did not deserve those stupid rules.

“You’ve already gone,” Adam said slowly. He knew it was the truth when Ronan didn’t counter it.

“Come with me.”

“You can’t lose your inheritance,” Adam said, instead of _no._ “Especially if you intend on being a wizard farmer.”

Ronan’s eyes were steely. He said with new confidence, “You’ll go.”

“Anywhere,” Adam confessed. “Anywhere with you.”

They did not, in fact, end up playing in the snow like Blue wanted. Adam informed her that the snow had melted away to slush, and she’d switched their mission to helping a group of students throw a party in the kitchens. The intended attendees being a gathering of students either ostracised by family after coming out, generally uninterested in going home for the holidays, or a collection of allies who wanted to stay at school for other reasons. Plus miscellaneous motivations. Dubbed the ‘Queermas’ group by their leader, Tad Carruthers.

“ _That_ is an impressively ugly fucking tree,” Ronan said to Blue, pacing around a twelve-foot monstrosity she’d covered in rainbow crepe paper and gold ornaments.

Red and green streamers fluttered in a non-existent breeze, attached to the ends of branches. Little moving ornaments each of the Queermas members had added from their own collections were scattered over the tree. Ballet dancers, mice, carousels, pictures. Blue was in the process of levitating a string of popcorn around it.

Adam punched Ronan’s arm before Blue could do it even harder.

“It’s festive,” Blue said. A box on the ground beside her spilled ornaments with Tad’s face on them across the Great Hall’s floor.

Adam laughed. “It’s something else.”

“I’m not backing down.” Blue toed one of the ornaments with her boot. “Might leave those ones out, though.”

Ronan stopped pacing. He drew his wand, and with a simple flick, turned the images of Tad’s grinning and winking face to ravens. Adam never ceased to be in awe of Ronan’s simple, effortless control over his magic. Each raven was different-- some larger, some stouter, some regal, some lumps of matted feathers. They opened their mouths in silent caws and flapped around on the ornaments.

Adam picked one up. The bird stared back at him with its head tilted. “This one looks like Chainsaw.”

Ronan leaned over Adam to inspect the gleaming green ball. He shrugged. “Keep it.”

Adam tucked it in his pocket.

After another half hour of Blue meticulously adjusting the decorations and shooing passerby away from it, she finally stepped back.

“What do you think?” she asked, her hands on her hips, slim wand tucked behind her ear. Ronan pretended to survey it.

“It’s fuck-ugly,” he declared.

Blue made a _pshaw_ sound. “You said that already.”

“No,” Ronan said, looking pleased with himself, “last time, I said--”

“I’m sure they’ll love it,” Adam cut in, taking Blue’s side instead. “It’s a show-stopper.”

If Blue had agreed to this with them around, or if it was anyone else, Adam might have thought she was making a pointed show of her allyship. Except, it was Blue, and they hadn’t been there, and the smile on her face was genuine care as she stared up at the tree.

She turned to Adam. “Help me levitate it?”

Adam agreed, and Blue disappeared behind the giant tree, stacking boxes and cleaning up the bits and glitter on the ground.

Adam scooped up an empty box and looked at Ronan. “Are we going to the party?”

Ronan gestured toward Blue. “Do we have a choice?”

“The Barns,” Adam said.

Ronan shook his head. He’d already made his decision before.

“This week,” Adam promised. “Just don’t make it at three am, yeah?”

Blue reappeared, clapping her hands with a cry of, “Let’s do this, boys!”, and the struggle to move the tree without breaking anything began. Blue tackled it with enthusiasm, Ronan snarked just enough to keep Adam laughing. Between them, Adam felt warm inside all the way to the kitchens.

At some point in the party, Adam had let himself get dragged into a gingerbread house competition. And managed to drag Ronan into it with him. Blue stood across the table from them, making a house with excessive amounts of candy decorations, while Adam worked beside Ronan, precariously balancing his roof on uneven walls. The other competitors had long gotten ahead of Adam, but he’d given up on watching them succeed.

“Don’t touch it!” came a cry from down the table. Shortly after, the tell-tale groans as another house collapsed. Adam heard Ronan chuckling to his right and elbowed him.

The roof slid, just slightly, and Adam hissed at it to stop moving. This would be easier with magic, but Tad had declared the competition ‘muggle-style’. He liberally applied another line of icing, only for the roof to entirely fall before he could catch it. The decorative icing he’d put on top smeared on the table. The rest of the house proceeded to collapse. Ronan scoffed.

“Like you could do better,” Adam started, finally turning to see Ronan’s house.

Almond slice shingles, clean lines of icing for windows and doors, gum drops lined up on the roof like lights. Smooth white creases between pieces-- Ronan’s gingerbread house was impossibly perfect.

“You’re cheating,” Adam said, laughing disbelievingly. “There’s no way.”

Ronan looked up from where he’d been carefully applying icing to a gummy bear. He threw a look at Adam’s crumpled house and smirked. “Not doing so hot, Parrish?”

“Cheater.”

“All you need is some precision. A little grace. Talent, maybe,” Ronan said.

Blue heard them and turned her attention away from her own structure. The walls on hers were beginning to separate and shift. She let out a frustrated cry at the sight of Ronan’s.

“ _What?_ That is not possible, that is--” Blue threw icing-covered hands up in the air. “No magic allowed.”

“You can test it for yourself,” Ronan said. He stuck the gummy bear into a starburst of them on the side, aligned like strange flowers. Adam smeared the icing on his fingers down Ronan’s cheek. Ronan licked Adam’s hand.

“That’s disgusting,” Adam said. Ronan lobbed a spare gummy bear at him, and Adam threw one back, laughing.

He hadn’t consciously held expectations for the party, but had been surprised anyway when students from all houses started showing up, gifts in hand. There were forty or so of them-- a small amount, in the kitchen’s enormous space, but many more than Adam had imagined. Ten or eleven sitting awkwardly in a circle playing spin the bottle? This was nothing like that.

Blue’s Christmas tree stood front and center, and the four house tables had been pushed aside, smaller ones filled with drinks and snacks lined up instead. One of the tables was left out, a few students sitting and talking around it. Most were in the open space, singing raucously and dancing to Christmas music, or standing around the competition table cheering along or annoying their friends.

Adam had never been part of something like this. He’d never expected his Hogwarts letter either, or the friends he’d find once there. His father often spoke with distaste of wizarding culture and his own years at Hogwarts, before he’d married Adam’s muggle mother and shut himself off from the world.

Sometimes, Adam heard whispers from students, calling him a mudblood. He doubted they knew the truth-- but there was nothing wrong with being muggleborn, and he’d much rather their unweighted gossip than them know his true parentage.

“I bet Ronan could do a million spells without us noticing,” Blue said. Ronan did, indeed, end up winning the competition. One of three people with their houses even left standing by the end of it. “All nonverbal-- he’s got power in those glares. One bad look and suddenly you’ve got a curse on your bloodline.”

Adam laughed as Ronan came back from being crowned by Tad, his prize in hand. A large wreath filled with tiny rainbow lights. Ronan leaned over his gingerbread house and wrenched the roof off without pause, breaking off a piece to shove into Adam’s hands.

“It was so pretty!” Blue looked to be grieving over the house. Ronan grinned. “I mean, hideous. Hideous, Lynch. Have you ever seen so much as a clip of _The Great British Bake-Off_? That ought to teach you.”

Ronan made a show of removing candy from the house and stacking it onto his chunk of roof before eating it.

“Unbelievable,” Blue said, shaking her head.

“Do you intend on eating that?” Gansey said, coming up beside her and gesturing to her house.

Blue rounded on him disapprovingly. “It’s meant to be _decoration_ first! Honestly!”

A wreath being dropped around his neck drew Adam’s attention back to Ronan. It was scratchy and uncomfortable, but Ronan looked at it with a quiet pride that made Adam leave it on.

“Merry Christmas,” Ronan said, with the visible purpose of being sarcastic. It came out softer than that, paired with the look on his face. Adam soaked up Ronan’s smile and swiped icing from the corner of Ronan’s mouth with his thumb.

“Merry Christmas,” Adam said back. He still wondered how Blue and Gansey hadn’t figured them out yet.

At some point they’d begun a debate on the purpose of gingerbread houses, and Blue turned to Adam to back her up, as they often did.

“Adam-- input.” 

He purposefully finished off his chunk of gingerbread to dodge replying.

“It’s made of cookies,” Gansey managed to say in a scholarly way. “It’s cookie material, icing, and candy.”

“You’ve never made a gingerbread house, you don’t get to speak!”

“Look up,” Ronan said. Adam gave him a puzzled look, but followed his gaze to where a plant was blooming out of thin air-- ah. 

“Mistletoe,” Noah sing-songed, floating upside down. Pretty and green, red berries in the center. Gold sparks drifted down from it and disappeared a few inches away from Adam’s face. It had been appearing all night over random couples (and one not-couple who’d awkwardly kissed their way out of it earlier only to have a love confession in the middle of the party). 

Adam went to take an experimental step back, but found his feet rooted to the ground.

“Oh, stop it,” Blue told Noah as he sang _Adam and Ronan, sitting in a tree. . ._ , drawing out her wand. “I’m sure there’s a way to stop the spell.”

Adam’s skin prickled with the knowledge that Gansey and Blue were watching.

“There is,” Ronan said, quiet enough that only Adam could hear. Ronan’s eyes flashed with mischief, and Adam pressed back a smile.

He slid his arms up around Ronan’s neck. “I guess so.”

Ronan curled an arm around his waist and dipped him as he swept in for a kiss, dramatic as anything. Adam gasped and tightened his grip, all concept of his center of gravity gone, but kissed Ronan back. He laughed against Ronan’s lips.

When Ronan set him back on his feet, his arms still around Adam’s waist, Blue and Gansey stood frozen still, thoroughly shocked looks on their faces.

“Uhh, so,” Gansey started.

Blue laughed suddenly and pumped a fist in the air. “I knew it!”

“What?” Gansey remained dumbfounded. “I thought you were joking.”

“You’ve finally gotten your lives together, huh?” Blue plowed on.

“It’s been four months,” Ronan deadpanned. Blue went back to being shocked. Above them, Noah cackled, and she directed her attention to him.

“You knew!”

Noah kept laughing.

Ronan shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked toward the snack table.

Adam looked between Gansey and Blue.

“You’re free,” Adam said. He hoped they understood.

Gansey gaped at him like a fish while Blue honed in on Noah to demand answers of, and Adam hurried to catch up to Ronan. He fell into step with him as they reached the other end of the kitchens, not needing to weave through students or elves as they parted before Ronan like the Red Sea. He looped his arm through Ronan’s.

They turned simultaneously to catch each other’s gaze. For a moment, Ronan was expressionless. Then that mischief flashed again and Adam burst into laughter. He struggled to collect himself, and eventually gave up, curling his fingers into Ronan’s shirt and hiding his face in his neck as he laughed.

“You’re stabbing me,” Ronan complained, but didn’t pull back. The wreath pressed sharply into Adam’s chest as well.

Adam sat on a bench by the snack table and scooped up a brownie, still grinning. Ronan sat back in a mask of cool that only made Adam laugh again. Ronan fiddled with the wreath’s lights, making them flash. Adam batted his hands away.

“Carruthers hasn’t bothered us yet,” Ronan drawled. “Thought he would’ve been all over you by now.”

“You’re doing it again,” Adam said.

“Doing what?”

“Being rude.”

Ronan gestured to himself as if to say _this is what you signed up for._ Adam looked around the room for Tad anyway. “He’s by Gansey, now. I bet you in--”

He froze. A hush fell over the room as the portrait door swung open, and a boy in a mockery of stylish muggle clothing stepped in. The well-known son of rich Purebloods straight out of the Voldemort section in history books. Adam’s own father had been a Voldemort supporter, along with so many other students’ parents, but there were few in their generation who shared the sentiment. In many ways, Joseph Kavinsky tried to go against the grain.

“I’m pretty sure the ‘welcome all’ policy doesn’t apply here,” Adam said, tensing up out of instinct. He turned to see Ronan’s reaction. His expression had turned to stone. 

And before Adam could stop him, Ronan grit his teeth and shot off the bench, people stumbling out of his way as he made a beeline for Kavinsky. Ronan shoved his chest with two hands. Kavinsky snapped something Adam couldn’t hear. Ronan grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out.

He dragged him past the other students, who stared and whispered. Some of them with reassuring arms around each other, no doubt put off by Kavinsky’s appearance. Ronan slammed the portrait closed.

Adam thought better of following them. They had a history, Ronan and Kavinsky, and the same way Adam needed to deal with Cabeswater to make peace within himself, sometimes Ronan needed to sort things out on his own.

He tried to steady his heartbeat and press down the worry that threatened to overwhelm him. He busied himself helping a bubbly Hufflepuff girl ladle out cups of fruit punch, and after a few minutes that dragged into hours, Ronan came back.

He stalked up to Adam’s side, twitching and flushed red, before looming with a glare. The girl wasn’t deterred.

She merely said, “Hi, Ronan. Nice t-shirt,” (Adam had forced him to wear one with the outline of a Christmas tree on it), and skipped away.

Ronan twisted his hand into Adam’s sweater, at the small of his back.

“Give me a minute,” Adam said, letting Ronan cool down. He heard Ronan take several over-dramatic breaths as he filled the last cups. He put the ladle down and stilled.

Ronan stepped in close, wrapping an arm around Adam’s waist and hiding his face in the back of Adam’s neck. “We can stay. If you want.”

“What do _you_ want?” Adam asked. Ronan kissed the top knob of his spine, his breaths ghosting across Adam’s skin. His fingers flexed in Adam’s sweater, and Adam could feel Ronan buzzing through his skin. “Let’s get out of here.”

  
  


The astronomy tower was cold and empty this time of year. Adam led them up there and let Ronan pace and slam his open palm against the raised stone edge and swear, long and elegant, until he didn’t have any anger left. Ronan crumpled to the ground, leaning his back back against the tower’s side. Adam sank down beside him.

“Better?” Adam asked. He sought out Ronan’s hand in the dark. The stars beamed down above them, the world a little brighter than usual with moonlight reflecting off the snow. He found Ronan’s hand, and weaved their fingers together.

“They know, now,” Ronan said, instead of anything Adam expected him too. Adam turned, blinking at him in surprise. A smile tugged the edge of his mouth.

“And?” Adam said.

“They’re dumbasses.”

“ _And_ what do you think?”

“It’s late. We’re obvious. I think they’re dumbasses.”

They laughed together, then, and Adam pretended not to notice that Ronan’s came out shaky. Ronan squeezed his hand three times. Adam did it back.

“You know what I think, now?” Ronan said, shifting closer. “I think you should kiss me.”

Adam leaned in. “Not make out with you?”

“Maybe that too.”

Ronan kissed him until the stars spun and they started to freeze and Adam thought _fuck winter,_ but also this was the sappiest, most romantic thing done with Ronan yet, and he started to laugh. And then Ronan laughed, and they laughed some more and kissed some more, and Adam wanted nothing more than to hang on to this feeling forever.

The Slytherin Common Room was nearly permanently empty this time of year. Carruthers had invited Adam to the Queermas Hogsmeade trip, but instead of doing anything fun, he was doing homework. Better to get it out of the way now.

Adam scribbled down another line about trolls throughout history and blinked against the stickiness in the corners of his eyes. Exhaustion weighed his eyelids. The fire blazed steady and green before him, illuminating the books and papers he’d arranged across the carpet. Fish and the occasional merperson kept him company. It didn’t do much to ease the full-body ache he was dragging himself through.

Gansey was likely leading the others on some adventure. Or holing them up in the library to find books on Glendower, as if they’d gotten any new ones in all the time they’d been at Hogwarts. Either option was more appealing than this. He wrote down another line.

 _“Adam Parrish! Open up!”_ someone shouted, their voice warped and faint through the walls. Noah appeared in the corner of Adam’s eye, floating up through the floor.

“That’s Blue. You better let her in,” he said.

Adam spun his quill pointedly. “I’m writing an essay. History of Magic.”

_“Adam!”_

“You better let her in,” Noah said again, grinning. He floated toward the entrance.

Adam rubbed his eyes and stared longingly toward the dorms. Go out in the snow, or finish his essay? A nap sounded more appealing than either option. The knocking continued, so Adam pulled himself up on the arm of a couch and spelled his parchment to roll itself up and shoot into his bag. He shoved supplies in and stuck his bag under a coffee table, doubting anyone would mess with it.

When Adam swung the stone door open, Blue threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck before hauling him through the entrance and into the hall.

“We’re losing daylight,” she told him seriously. Adam barely closed the common room up again before she was pulling him down the corridor. At the end, Ronan and Gansey sat on the slick staircase leading up to the main floor. Blue slowed as they approached.

Ronan leaned his head against the wall, arms crossed, head tipped back. Gansey stared at him with his best kingly expression, imploring him to say something more. Whatever the topic was, Ronan clearly wasn’t interested. At the sight of Blue and Adam, Gansey sprung to his feet, throwing one last glance at Ronan before letting it go. Adam could speculate the talk had been about him.

Noah swooping through the halls ahead, their group walked out of the dungeons and across Hogwarts. Blue and Gansey talked about a possible mock Quidditch match, and Adam fell behind to where Ronan walked with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“What was that about?” Adam asked, low in Ronan’s ear so Gansey wouldn’t catch it. Ronan shrugged. Adam didn’t push.

He looked out a window as they passed it-- last night, snow had fallen, thick and heavy and swallowing all sound. The first day of break, it had been grey and sludgy. Now, it finally looked like Christmas. Adam’s childhood hadn’t made room for simple, childish joys, but he was learning to treasure them now. He was learning what it was like to have them at all.

“A heartbreak talk,” Ronan said. Adam’s gaze snapped to his. “Gansey thinks you’re going to shatter me.”

“He thinks _I’m--,”_ Adam stopped. Gansey and Blue walked with their shoulders close together, backs of their hands brushing. They’d been holding back from being affectionate with each other, all for fear of hurting Adam. “Do they think I’m only with you as a rebound?”

“Gansey seemed to think so.”

Adam wrinkled his nose. “It’s not true.”

“Good to know.”

“Shut up,” Adam said, laughing. He teetered to the side to knock Ronan off course, and Ronan pushed back, nearly sending him into a column. “I got over Blue a long time ago.”

“Good to know.”

Adam shook his head and bit his lip. “And I’ve wanted you for a long time, too.”

“Good to know.”

The grounds stretched out white and glittery until the lake and forest began, the footprints tracked through it already half-covered by fresh snow. It fell, graceful and unhurried, to cling affectionately to leaves and stones and the scarves and hats of laughing students. Adam held out his hand, watching it catch and melt.

Blue forced them all out into the snow.

“Let’s go, losers,” she said, shoving Gansey’s back extra hard. He stumbled off the edge of the stone floor to ground level, sinking into the thick sheet of snow. Adam eyed it nervously.

His boots were second-hand and perfectly functional, but the soles were ripping up around the edges. No doubt his feet would be wet and freezing by the end of this. Noah skipped around outside, dragging Blue by the hand.

“Want a spell?” Ronan leaned in close. Sometimes, it was disturbing how easily he could read Adam’s thoughts.

Adam agreed, and Ronan gave him one he’d learned from Merlin-knows-where. A few minutes later, they were fully out in the stinging cold, stomping through the snow and pushing each other around.

“Blue’s going to attack, any moment,” Adam warned, in Ronan’s general direction. He saw her eyeing the snow.

 _Thwack._ Snow hit Adam’s back. He whipped around to find Ronan walking casually, white flakes up his sleeves. Adam scooped up snow to retaliate.

“Boys against girl!” Noah cried, but dove into a drift and coated himself in snow before the fight got a chance to start.

Blue leveled a glare at him, though her expression cracked into a smile when he formed a snow angel. Adam threw a ball at Ronan, who easily dodged it. Blue looked to Adam, eyebrows arched, and he raised his arms in surrender.

“Pass,” Ronan said, turning to saunter off toward the whomping willow.

Adam moved to follow him. “You started this.” 

“I’m getting a snowball war before break ends!” Blue called after them. Adam laughed. He didn’t doubt it.

He trudged through the snow, deep enough to come halfway up his calves, and heard the sound of Blue and Noah’s joyful shouts mixed in with a cry from Gansey. Blue must’ve scored the first hit. Adam shook his head fondly and caught up to Ronan, matching him by shoving his hands into his pockets. He’d cast a warming spell earlier, though it was beginning to wear off.

Ronan’s steps were wide and strong to fight the snow. Adam struggled to pull his boots up after each step.

“Slow down,” Adam said. Ronan walked faster. “Bastard.”

Ronan turned over his shoulder, a smirk on his face like a challenge. Adam accepted. He charged forward and crashed into Ronan’s back, tackling him to the ground. The downside was that this also ended with snow soaking into Adam’s coat. The upside was that Ronan laughed, sudden and sharp, and turned immediately to tussle with him.

They rolled through the snow, gaining the upper hand then losing it then gaining it again, until Ronan finally pinned Adam down. His knee pressed into the middle of Adam’s chest. Snow already surrounded his face and hair, but Ronan sought to make it worse. He scooped up a handful of snow and shoved it in Adam’s face.

“Hey!” Adam spluttered, wiping his face off with the hand that wasn’t pinned beneath Ronan’s leg. Ronan laughed again, still leaning over Adam. His black coat hung open. Adam reached up and seized the collar of Ronan’s shirt, hauling him closer. The suddenness of it took Ronan off-guard and off-balance enough for Adam to free his other arm.

He lifted Ronan’s shirt away from his body and poured snow in.

“Fucking backstabber,” Ronan hissed, eyes flying wide as he clutched his chest. Adam laughed and shoved Ronan off him, rolling the other boy onto the snow beside him. He expected Ronan to exact revenge and continue the fight, but Ronan didn’t move.

Adam watched the blue and white sky spin above him, dizzy and breathless. His heart pounded, his blood rushing in his ears. He was overcome with a wave of emotions and reactions. In a good way. The most spectacular feeling of joy.

He got up on one elbow. Snow stuck to Ronan’s eyelashes. Melted on his cheeks. Adam leaned down and kissed him. And kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until his mouth started to numb, and cold water seeped through to his skin, and he settled onto his back in the snow once more and laughed. 

“I’m getting hypothermia,” Adam said.

They’d only made it halfway across the field. In the distance, he could see the other three still running around through the snow. Or rather, Blue was chasing Gansey with a ball of snow in her arms larger than her head, and Noah was floating above their heads, flipping in the air and throwing snow.

“Are you cold yet?” Adam said, getting to his feet and kicking Ronan’s leg. Ronan had his arms folded behind his head and eyes closed, as if he were relaxing in the grass on a warm summer day instead of surrounded by a foot of snow in freezing temperatures.

“It’s not bad,” Ronan said. The bright red color of his face gave him away, and the sniffles he tried to hide.

Adam rolled his eyes fondly and grabbed Ronan’s arms, yanking him up. Ronan didn’t help, simply letting Adam struggle with his weight until his feet were underneath him. Adam’s arm ended up by Ronan’s waist as he forced him to stand.

Ronan used the arm around Adam’s shoulders to haul him forwards heavily. Adam grinned as Ronan tucked him against his body.

They trekked toward the castle in companionable silence.

  
  


It was 2:31 AM and Adam was not having it.

“Professor Longbottom told me!” Gansey said excitedly, practically bouncing around the dorm room in his excitement. “And I looked it up in _Hogwarts: A History._ Noah says someone just went in, so that makes it even simpler. There could be artifacts dating back to the reign of Glendower in there.”

Adam had agreed to sleeping in Gansey’s room over break, as all his roommates were home for Christmas, so they could all be together. He had _not_ agreed to staying up past midnight while Gansey ranted and looked through books, or had Noah spy on people. Adam told him so.

“Well,” Gansey said, enthusiasm not abating in the slightest. “It’s not _spying._ He’s merely watching the Room of Requirement, and now we know how to get in!”

“Great,” Blue said, from her spot in a conjured sleeping bag on the floor. “It’ll still be there tomorrow.”

“I need my beauty sleep,” Ronan agreed. He was sprawled out on the bed beside Gansey’s, uncaring that it belonged to someone else. “Turn the fucking lights out, they’re burning my eyes.”

Henry Cheng, one of Gansey’s fellow Ravenclaws, had been working on ‘alternative light sources’. He’d lit up the room with magic balls of light that sparked and exploded every few minutes. Albeit harmlessly, but Adam had to side with Ronan on this. His eyes were dry and tired.

“Adam?” Gansey asked, turning to him with a questioning glance. Adam shifted under his gaze. He nodded. Gansey sighed. “Alright. Alright, tomorrow. But first thing tomorrow.”

“ _After breakfast,”_ Ronan said.

Gansey begrudgingly agreed. He put the lights out and climbed into bed. The sound of curtains and closed faded, everyone settling down. Adam found peace in the black-dark while his eyes adjusted, trying to relax and fall asleep.

After a few minutes, the room appeared brighter, the moonlight shuttling in through the window and landing on Adam’s face. He exhaled loudly and stared at the ceiling. A spell similar to the one in the Great Hall rendered dark wood paneling a sky full of glittering stars.

He waited longer to fall asleep.

“Is everyone else awake?” Blue whispered.

“Yes,” Gansey and Adam said, while Ronan said, “No.”

The plasticky fabric of their sleeping bags rustled as Blue sat up, a dark silhouette Adam had to crane his neck to see. “Ugh, this hurts my back.”

It felt like nights at St. Agnes, so Adam didn’t complain.

“You can sleep up here,” Gansey offered.

“Are you going to say that to Adam, too?”

There was a pause. Amusement in his voice, Gansey asked, “Adam, would you like to sleep with me?”

Ronan snorted loudly. Adam rolled his eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. 

“Adam can sleep with Ronan,” Noah said. Adam jumped, seeing the ghost boy appear over him, hovering in the dark.

“That’s terrifying,” Adam said. Noah laughed and floated down, down, down, until he sank through the floor and was gone.

He closed his eyes, still chasing sleep, only half-listening to the conversation.

Ronan had never let Adam sleep beside him, even after they’d officially started dating. Through all the countless nights they’d piled into some common room or dorm, over breaks and weekends-- and even summers laying on the floor with sleeping bags-- Ronan always picked his own isolated spot. Adam was happy to respect his boundaries.

He zoned back in upon hearing his name.

“I’ll do it if Adam does it,” Blue said.

“Does what?”

“Invite him,” Gansey said.

Ronan said, “Whatever.”

Blue said, “Oh my god, you’re literally dating.”

Adam stared up into the dark. His heart beat a little faster. They wanted him to sleep next to Ronan. And he wanted to sleep next to Ronan. And there were other ways-- he could simply sleep in one of the other boys’ empty beds. But that felt like an intrusion, and at least in the original case Ronan had done it first, and he wanted to sleep with Ronan, of course he did.

Adam knew Ronan enough to see that his answer had been an invitation, after all. It felt like a repeat of what had happened at lunch, a few days ago. There was something about this time of year that made Ronan unfold. Adam pushed down his itch to ask what it was. 

Blue sighed dramatically, and Adam heard her getting up. He slowly mirrored her actions. It would be more trouble from them if he said no, rather than just moving.

Two years ago, it wouldn’t have been, with the expectation already set for Adam to shut the idea down and take sleeping on the hardwood. Adam had since learned to be better at accepting kindness, and they all knew it. Especially Gansey. He tried to push gifts at Adam often, now, though he still got rejected half the time.

Adam rolled up his sleeping bag and laid it at the foot of Gansey’s bed. Blue had already climbed in with him, the two bickering like an old married couple. Ronan’s curtains were shut.

He walked around to the other side so he couldn’t be seen, and inched the curtains open. A sphere of light hung in the air above the bed-- Ronan’s ghost light, a dream creation-- suspended by a charm. Ronan cast spells easier than breathing. Nonverbal and effortless. It used to make Adam jealous, but now he just found the off-handed grace and power attractive.

“Hi,” Adam said dumbly. 

Ronan’s gaze turned slowly from the sphere to him. He wore a black t-shirt, and Adam knew he had matching black sweatpants on from before, though they had the Hufflepuff crest on the hip. It was endearing. Something about Ronan had shifted when winter break started.

Possibly due to the fact that his brother Declan had graduated from Hogwarts, and most of the students he put on a show for were gone. Possibly because their friends had finally noticed their relationship, and there was not even half a pretense to be had. Hopefully because he trusted Adam to see the true him. He seemed more relaxed, less dangerous.

It made him dangerous in other ways. Adam couldn’t take his eyes off him. 

He looked less sharp at night. His edges sawed off by exhaustion and rounded by the soft shadows the light cast.

“I don’t have to,” Adam said, “if you’re uncomfortable.”

Ronan arched a brow. Adam looked down. There was already space on the bed made, even with Ronan’s limbs splayed out casually, for Adam’s body. The blankets were pulled back, waiting. There was something off about this, a tenseness in Ronan’s body that was much less casual than the attitude he projected.

“Is that a yes?” Adam said. “I’ll jump on top of Gansey and Blue.”

“I’m sure they’d love that,” Ronan said, rolling his eyes. Adam climbed in.

The mattress was infinitely more comfortable than the floor, and as the curtains swung shut and Adam laid down, his muscles relaxed. He hadn’t even noticed how tense he was.

Adam faced Ronan on his side, folding a hand under his pillow and head. Ronan stayed on his back with his own pillow, flicking a casual hand to make the light go out. It was dead silent. The voices of Blue and Gansey disappearing with the light.

“You cast a spell?” Adam said, automatically quiet. He couldn’t see a thing, not even a faint outline of Ronan. 

“Didn’t want to hear them bitching all night,” Ronan said, his voice tense and just as low. The edge of a lie in his tone.

Adam held his breath, hating how loud it sounded. “Are you going to give me my share of the blankets?”

“Nope.”

Adam reached out blindly and struck warm skin. He jerked back as if burned, grateful that Ronan couldn’t see him. He still wasn’t sure if this was really okay with Ronan, and it was making him equally as on-edge. A moment later, the blankets were tossed over him. He pulled them up to his chin.

“There’s something wrong with Gansey,” Adam muttered, half-amused, half-creeping worry.

Ronan didn’t answer. Sleep weighed heavy on his eyelids. It was comforting laying next to Ronan. Knowing that this boy could break people apart without even using a spell, and he would just as quickly defend Adam. It eased that creeping worry that sat constantly in the back of Adam’s brain. The fear of quick movements and loud noises.

He ran through their kiss on the pitch again and again in his head. Him on his side, Ronan on his back. Quiet intensity in the build-up, then hands in his hair, fingers brushing his jaw. Ronan talking about the Barns, the tightness in Adam’s throat at the thought of Ronan getting cut off from his family. 

Ronan shifted, far too slowly to be anything but calculated, and his bare arm brushed against Adam’s. He took the invitation, shuffling closer and tucking his head onto Ronan’s shoulder. With the warmth of Ronan’s body radiating through him, Adam shut his eyes and fell asleep.

  
  


A sharp, searing pain ripping across his face woke Adam up. Something black and scaly and feathery and squawking sat on his chest, its claws inches from cutting his face. It _had_ cut his face. It screamed and darted forward, its enormous beak shooting for his eye. He barely shoved a hand in front of it in time, shoving the creature to the side.

“Ronan!” Adam cried instinctively as he batted it just far enough to land on the strip of space between them. Ronan’s arm was wrapped heavily around Adam’s waist. They still laid on the bed, concealed by curtains, but it wasn’t pitch black like when he’d fallen asleep. Blue lights danced over Ronan’s head. Illuminated his sleeping face, twisted in fear and horror.

The creature hopped, both bird and snake like at the same time, from the bed to Ronan’s chest. Adam sat up against the weight of Ronan’s arm and hit the creature with both hands. The angle was awkward, but he struck as hard as he could, and the creature rolled off Ronan. It squawked and hissed and snapped at Adam’s fingers.

He scrambled to grab onto it, one hand finding its torso. His other hand found its throat, thick and muscled.

“Ronan-- Ronan, wake up,” Adam yelled desperately. Ronan jerked awake beside him as the creature clawed Adam’s arms.

He swore in one loud stream and reached under his pillow. In a flash, Ronan raised a knife the length of his hand and stabbed it into the creature. It flailed and screeched. Adam’s face, arms, and chest stung. It broke free from his hands, but flapped away from them. He sprung up to catch it, scrambling to stop it before it could get through the curtains and straight on toward Gansey and Blue.

It bounced off the curtain.

Adam blinked. The curtain shimmered and stuck, a solid barrier. Ronan’s hand gripped his elbow.

The creature fell onto the bed. It screeched and screeched and finally stilled.

His heart pounded half out of his chest. Blood, as black as night and oozing like oil, soaked into the sheets, illuminated by the ghost light now bobbing uncertainly over Adam’s head.

He turned to Ronan. “What the fuck.”

  
  


The bathroom light stung his eyes. It was sharp and bright, but at least it wasn’t Henry’s.

Adam rooted through the cabinet under the sink for anything that might help, feeling a little guilty about going through strangers’ things. At least some of it must be Gansey’s. He found a purple bucket of cotton and bandages, and stuck it up on the counter. Ronan leaned against the doorframe watching him.

Gansey and Blue were still fast asleep, their limbs tangled together on the bed. Adam had taken one look at them and moved on, stepping quietly by and on to the bathroom. His hands shook. His whole body shivered constantly. It would be impossible to fall back asleep now, and by the look on Ronan’s face, he assumed the other boy felt the same way.

“I threw it out,” Ronan said.

Adam bent his head over the bucket, unable to muster the courage to look into the mirror. “Threw it where?”

“Window.”

“ _Lynch.”_

“Animals will eat it.”

Adam drew out a roll of medical tape and another of cotton wrap. “I don’t think anything will go near that.”

He unrolled the wrap in measured movements, careful to force his hands steady. He watched Ronan out of the corner of his eye. Arms folded, shoulders tense. He waited on Adam to say something.

He had questions. _Do you spell the curtains shut every night? Do your roommates know? Does Gansey know? Why didn’t you tell us?_ But he could figure out the answers too. Of course Ronan spelled them, of course he never let anyone know, of course Gansey didn’t know, because then the rest of them would. Adam hated that he shut everything up inside, even though he hid his own connections to Cabeswater. Except, Ronan _knew._

Even though Adam had never told him, he knew. And Noah knew. So it wasn’t like this was a fair trade. Well. Noah probably knew about Ronan already. 

Adam sighed. Blood dripped down his face, splatting on the counter. He shifted to lean over the sink and watched the drops go. Red against white. Everything stung, but Adam’s body knew pain well before this. 

“There might be spells,” Adam said finally, “for controlling your magic.”

Ronan stepped fully inside and shut the bathroom door. “Nothing can stop it.”

“It’s just like you’re eleven, or something. Random bursts of powers. Fits and sparks,” Adam said. “You just need more training.”

Ronan took the rolls from Adam’s hands. “There’s nothing wrong with my magic.”

He swung an accusing hand toward the door. “Clearly not.”

“It came from my dreams,” Ronan said flatly.

Adam froze. His head shot up, eyes meeting Ronan’s. He didn’t look like he was joking, but he didn’t look dramatic about it either. Just blank and bored. That was a front.

“That still counts as out-of-control,” Adam informed him. He tried not to react. He could see the bracing look behind Ronan’s eyes. And it hit him, then. Of course Ronan had hid it. And hid it so well for so long-- Adam finding out was no accident. “No one else knows?”

Ronan arched a brow.

“We’re your friends, we would’ve helped you.”

He very gently picked up Adam’s arm. His fingers slipped under Adam’s sleeve, calloused and cool. “Hospital Wing?”

“Hell no.” Ronan’s expression said, _you force me there after Quidditch matches._ “That’s because you’re being stupid. This is because it’s-- whatever time in the morning, and I’m not waking someone up for this. Or answering questions about it. Should I say an owl attacked me?”

“A cursed owl,” Ronan agreed, then magic poured from his fingertips straight into Adam’s arm. Warm and smooth, rushing through his veins. Adam’s breath hitched. The scratches and gashes on his arms slowly knit themselves back together again, red lines giving way once more to smooth skin. He watched Ronan’s expression, but the only thing he could read was concentration.

When his arm stopped smarting, Adam took Ronan’s hand and laid it on his cheek. “Where’d you learn that?”

“It’s just a healing spell,” Ronan said. Adam shook his head in wonder. He turned to inspect his arm in the mirror, then immediately regretted it.

His Coca Cola t-shirt was ripped half to shreds at the top. His collar torn. The skin around it worse. Everywhere, it burned and stung. His shoulders, his chest, up his neck. Deep, jagged slashes across his cheek where blood still streamed steadily from. Adam’s gaze darted to meet Ronan’s in the mirror, then to his red-stained hand. Ronan still didn’t move it away.

Magic flowed through him once more.

Adam felt a tugging sensation, an anxious tingling all over his skin, as it healed. The blood didn’t fade. Ronan took a small towel from the bucket and dampened it with the tap. He nudged Adam until he cleared a space on the counter and hopped up on it, standing between Adam’s legs as he swiped the towel over his cheek.

He let Ronan wipe the blood from his skin. He rinsed the towel, and the water ran pink. Adam shuddered to think of that creature again-- and it couldn’t be the worst of Ronan’s mind. There must be more, so much more that he’d been silently dealing with all this time.

“Ronan. . .”

The other boy didn’t look up. His eyes traced over Adam’s skin, clearing away the last of the blood. He was tense and fearful and Adam knew in a flash what he was thinking, and this was why they worked. They understood each other like no one else.

“Did you think I’d call you a monster?” Adam said. Ronan flinched minutely. “I wouldn’t. Come on, I wouldn’t.”

“Granger’s been making it better,” Ronan said. “Laws have changed. People have changed.”

“I wouldn’t have before, either.”

Something fierce and desperate roiled behind Ronan’s eyes. The past decades-- the past two wars, and their results-- had not been kind to those with additional powers. Differences that scared the average wizard.

Werewolves, veela, giants. All had gotten the short end of the stick time and time again. The pointy end of spears.

Adam flailed helplessly in the face of it. Ronan still didn’t meet his gaze. Not knowing what else to do, he wrapped his arms around Ronan’s shoulders and pulled him into his chest. Ronan went easily, his arms coiling tightly around Adam’s waist. He tucked his face in Adam’s neck, breaths shaky against his skin.

There was something unnatural lurking about Adam, too. He couldn’t take Ronan killing himself over something that only made him better, more _Ronan._ His magic was breathtaking, his powers were boundless, the depths of his soul ceaselessly awe-inspiring. Ronan knew pain just as Adam did, and it churned him out stronger.

“You’re amazing,” Adam whispered. “And anyone who says otherwise-- they don’t know you. They don’t know how _good_ you are.”

He meant every word with his whole being. And there was so much else to be said, so many things he wanted Ronan to know, but he didn’t have the words. Cabeswater rushed under his skin. Dew in his hair, leaves brushing by his fingers, the sound of torrential rain and rumbling thunder.

“Good is a four-letter word,” Ronan said. Adam held him tighter.

They stole a night away from the others, sitting on the floor of the Hufflepuff Common Room instead. The fire blazing, Ronan's quilt wrapped firmly around his shoulders. Adam stared into the flames and cradled a mug of hot cocoa, watches Ronan blatantly cheat at wizard's chess. He laughed and snarked and sipped warmth straight down to his core and thought that there was no better way to spend Christmas Eve. He told Ronan exactly that.

"Christmas at the Barns," Ronan countered. "There was this little doll, shaped like a dragon, and my mum would hide it somewhere in the house. We had a whole Christmas set up-- miniature town, you know, wrapping around every room. And she'd come up with a story, about the dragon growing up or escaping, or being a little boy's pet. And she'd hide it somewhere that made sense with that story. First person to find it won a jar of chocolates."

Adam watched him recount his childhood, enthralled. Ronan had gotten ahold of a half-empty bottle of Firewhisky, and poured a shot into each of their mugs. He was buzzing just enough to be loose and honest.

"What?" Ronan stared at him questioningly. Adam shook his head and tossed a marshmallow at him.

"It sounds nice," Adam said. "We should do that, one day. Maybe Blue can help-- we'll put the town up again."

Ronan kept staring. Adam's cheeks warmed.

"I mean-- I wouldn't have to live at the Barns for that. Just help you with it, or--"

"I want you to."

For a long moment, there was only the crackle of the fire and the space between them. Adam nodded once. Sharply. 

"When we graduate, _if_ you don't get caught beforehand," Adam said. "And you get the Barns. You get to go back. . .I'll go with you. If you'll have me. And Declan."

"Fuck him," Ronan said. "You're living with me."

Adam breathed in, feeling the change in the air. That was a promise for the future, and the future was something Adam had many doubts about. Ronan bounced a marshmallow off his face, and Adam thought that everything was a little more _right_ with Ronan in it.

It’s nearly pitch black out when Ronan wakes him up. Adam’s crammed onto a couch, surrounded by blankets and pillows Ronan must have piled onto him. The fire is down to a low flicker, but Ronan has his ghost light floating above his head.

“What time is it,” Adam groaned, rubbing his sticky eyes.

“Time to go,” Ronan answered, looking unusually jittery. Chainsaw perched on his shoulder. Technically, she was supposed to stay up in the owlery, but Ronan had been getting away with keeping her with him more and more now that it was Winter Break.

Adam stared at him, unamused. “ _Now?”_

“Get up, Parrish.”

“Did you make a plan that _won’t_ get us incinerated?” Adam asked. “Contrary to seemingly popular belief, I don’t have a death wish.”

Ronan sprung to his feet, his lips curling into a cutting smile. “Damn. Here, I thought flying over as ghosts would be the best way. Would you fight the Whomping Willow for me?”

“Is your head on right?” Adam sat up. The mountain of pillows and blankets fell off him. "Tell me you didn't take more of that Firewhisky."

“Get up,” Ronan said again. Adam did.

  
  


Ronan’s plan involved sneaking past Filch, breaking into McGonagall’s office, and unlawfully using the Floo system. Technically, none of it was bad enough to get them expelled, but the worry remained. The thought of being caught prickled in the back of Adam’s mind.

He’d gotten away with plenty before. Going through the Forbidden Forest, waking the ley line, countless searches for Glendower, all without getting caught. Adam tried to remember those times as Ronan laid his hand on the office door.

It was midnight.

The others were asleep.

The Queermas group had taken up residence in the Great Hall.

Filch was preoccupied with some diversion Ronan had caused and Adam didn’t want to know about.

Adam and Ronan had been awake since-- well, Ronan had probably never slept in the first place, so Merlin-knows-when. Adam wore his Muggle clothes-- Ronan dressed similarly. For once, Adam looked a little like him. All dark clothes and black jacket. His wand dug into his hip, stuck in a pocket too small for it.

Ronan leaned his ear against the door, a faint shimmer radiating out from his hand. The way he’d moved through the halls, ducking from shadow to shadow, his feet knowing exactly what corridors to turn down-- he’d done this before. The familiar way he checked for intruders, and pushed his magic into the door. . . A faint clicking came from within it, low enough that Adam could only hear it in his good ear.

“It begins,” Adam said. Ronan waggled his eyebrows. Then he pushed, and the door easily swung open.

They picked their way through the dark shapes of McGonagall’s office, Ronan’s ghost light bobbing along ahead of them, Chainsaw flapping in circles, and all too soon squeezed into the fireplace. Ronan held out a bag of Floo powder. Adam dug out a handful, his other arm wrapped around Ronan, hoping they’d stick together through the journey. Chainsaw clung to Ronan's shoulder, tight enough that his shirt began to tear.

He tossed it down, Ronan chanted the address, and the fireplace spat them out in pitch black.

Adam reached his hands out blindly, feeling the fireplace behind him and Ronan ahead. He took a hesitant step forward, ears straining for anything moving in the room. They were somewhere inside, and it was both stuffy and cold at the same time.

“Where’s your light?” Adam whispered.

 _“Lumos.”_ Light flared up from Ronan’s wand.

The room was-- well, a barn. Animals sleeping all around them, tools hung on the wall, bags of feed by the fireplace.

“You don’t live in a literal barn, right?” Adam asked. Ronan snorted. “That’s not a no.”

“The fireplace inside the house is closed off.” Ronan swept his light around the room, heading for the tall double doors. The barn was formed of wooden slats and pillars, with dividers running between various animals, forming pens. Adam followed him, stepping over hay and seeds. “I haven’t gone inside the house much. My mother used to be here, but the last I heard from her she was brought to St. Mungo’s.”

“What? And you didn’t visit?”

“Declan wouldn’t let us see her.” Ronan pushed the doors open, and cold air rushed in. Chainsaw zipped past them and out, vanishing into the dark while Ronan watched without concern. “He says she’s living with some other family now. St. Mungo’s wouldn’t tell me what happened. Confidential, apparently.”

Adam shoved his hands in his pockets and hovered near Ronan, stepping out into the night. “That’s not right.”

The Barns sprawled out, smooth fields and hills, into the distance. Until forest and mountain rose up to end it. A house sat nestled in the middle of the property, the back of it visible from the hill where the barn was, and between them and the house, sleeping herds of animals. Sheep and cows. A bird that shimmered blue in the light by Adam’s foot.

Ronan didn’t reply, and Adam crouched by the bird, gently nudging it with his hand. It was small enough to fit in his palm, though strong and mature as an adult. Its feathers were soft and unnaturally reflective.

“My father dreamt that,” Ronan said softly. “He dreamed all of these animals-- and when the dreamer dies, they go to sleep. They can’t live without the dreamer’s energy.”

Ronan took him through the fields. Showed him every animal, big and small. Showed him the strange trees around his house and the lights strung along the back that glowed without electricity. Showed him, finally, the stars above his house and the constellations he’d pick out as a kid.

And sensing he needed a moment alone, Adam returned to the bird and the barn, waving Ronan off to take a walk through the house. He walked up the hill, looking around and imagining what it must’ve been like to be Ronan Lynch. Growing up here, surrounded by fantasy made real and so much love. He imagined what it was like to have all that be ripped violently away.

Adam peered around at the trees and the stars and--

and the trees.

and the trees,

they were whispering. German, Dutch, Latin? He strained to hear it. And then he was a million miles away. He was standing in the Forbidden Forest, he was standing in _Cabeswater,_ and it was creeping through his mind and skin and through his eyes and everything was Cabeswater. It needed him for something, and it was plunging him through to--

Ronan grabbed onto him. How long had he been standing there, listening to the forest? Ronan grabbed him, and Cabeswater rushed by, and he couldn’t do this.

“Get off me,” Adam said lowly. Ronan didn’t budge. He shoved Ronan’s chest. “ _Get the fuck off.”_

Water. Pouring, rushing. Rain. Thunder. Roiling, rushing, clapping, lightning screaming in his ears--

Lightning. Light and pain and

water

torrential. Hell fire. Smoke. Dew--

glassy lake surface, black as night

ink poison

he could drown in it, he could drown, he could drown, drown, drown, drown, drown--

“Parrish, look at me.” Ronan had his hands on Adam’s cheeks. He tried to push Ronan off, tried to hit him, tried to do anything to get this to stop-- the rush in his ears faded. It was Ronan making it better. Rain and fire and forest fires and dark creatures in the forest, and the tinge of poison and death and all the wars that touched Hogwarts grounds. All the battles, the pain, the blood seeping into the soil and poisoning everything. “Adam, please.”

The world snapped into silence.

Gaping silence. Cabeswater withdrew, and all Adam could feel was the adrenaline in his veins and Ronan holding him like he was on the brink of death. It probably felt like it.

Adam blinked up at him, the haze over his reality slinking away. Ronan’s face crumpled with relief, and his hands shifted to Adam’s shoulders, squeezing him tight.

“I’m okay,” Adam croaked. Ronan huffed a disbelieving laugh and pressed their foreheads together, breathing harshly. Adam raised his hands to Ronan’s biceps. “I’m exactly as alright as you were after that nightmare.”

“Are you really going to hang that over my head?” Ronan said, voice thick.

Adam nodded slightly, enough that Ronan could feel it.

He realized that at some point he’d fallen, or sank down. He sat up with his back against the barn wall, wood slats digging into his shoulder blades. Ronan crouched beside him, an awkward position. After a long moment, when he seemed to be sure Adam wasn’t about to retreat into the Cabeswater void in his mind, Ronan shifted to lean beside him and wrapped an arm around Adam’s shoulders, keeping their heads ducked together.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said finally. He didn’t know what else to.

“Don’t.” Ronan’s other arm snaked around Adam’s waist. They stayed like that for a long moment. Adam let his eyes slip closed.

“So much happened in the Forbidden Forest. I can feel it all. Cabeswater remembers it, and when I start becoming Cabeswater, I feel every drop of history.”

There was nothing to be said to that. Instead, Ronan clung onto him like Adam was his lifeline, rather than the other way around, and they breathed in sync until the world leveled out beneath Adam and the creatures bayed around them and Adam remembered what they’d come for.

“Will you show me your magic?” Adam said.

  
  


Ronan showed him his dream thing, his experiments, the animals he held dear. He tucked an ever-living flower into Adam’s hair and bent over sleeping cows and did his best to breathe life into them once more.

It had not been a smooth night. It had not been easy-- the path that led them from their childhoods to their friendship to here-- but in the end, Adam thought, as he watched Ronan press magic into his inventions and dreams, it was worth it.

  
  


Snow fell on Hogsmeade as they worked their way through the already solid sheet, refreshed over the days since they’d last gone outside. Christmas had come and gone, and on the last day before the rest of the students returned, they were off for their final adventure.

“ _Hoggy hoggy Hogwarts,”_ Gansey boomed, him and Blue singing a spectacularly mismatching rendition of the school song. 

“You haven’t even gotten a butterbeer yet,” Adam groaned. Ronan sang along with them, picking the tune of the Murder Squash Song. “Oh god. I hate you all.”

Ronan grabbed Adam’s arms, swinging them back and forth and singing loudly in his ear. Adam laughed and tried to get away, but Ronan had an iron grip.

Ronan grinned wickedly. “Sing it, Parrish.”

“No.”

“I’ll sing the Murder Squash Song for the rest of today,” Ronan threatened. Adam believed him. He joined in, laughing as Noah and Blue choreographed a few dance moves to go with it, which they forced the others to learn.

By the time they’d reached Honeydukes, all five of them were breathless with laughter and high on it alone. They filled the shop with their energy. Wherever Adam turned someone was enthusiastically singing or ranting about candy and Christmas.

“Sugar quills,” Ronan said, dangling a pack in front of Adam’s face.

“I’m not wasting my money on that,” Adam said, even though they were his favourite. He’d only brought enough money for two butterbeers.

Ronan swiped a box of chocolate crickets off a shelf to join his armful of candy. “Good thing I’m buying, then.”

He pecked Adam’s lips as he passed, walking off toward the front counter, and Adam flushed red as Blue gave him a thumbs up from the other end of the aisle. 

When Blue and Gansey had picked their candy, and Noah had flickered out with the promise to return when he gained more energy, they stumbled back out of the shop. Adam felt a press at his hip, Ronan shoving packets of sugar quills into his pocket, and didn’t resist.

Gansey rubbed his gloved hands together and looked around. “Three Broomsticks, next?”

“We’re going to Zonko’s,” Ronan declared, hauling Adam over by the collar.

Adam shrugged with a _what-can-you-do_ look at Blue’s protest, and laughed, letting Ronan bring him along in the opposite direction. “We’ll meet you there!”

Blue waved him off with her free hand, her other being picked up by Gansey. Adam grinned over his shoulder as Gansey and Blue laced their fingers together, smiling at each other dopily.

“Took them long enough,” Ronan huffed. They walked past storefronts glittering with snow and fairy lights, red ribbon strung across the street and strung with mistletoe and yet more lights. Adam looked to him, a smile permanently tugging the corner of his mouth.

“Took _us_ long enough. Were you ever going to tell me you fancied me?” Adam teased.

Ronan said easily, “Nope.”

“If it wasn’t for me. . .”

Adam laughed. He’d laughed a lot today. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so happy in one day, even on Christmas. Since break had started, life had continued to be a series of ups and downs, in even more rapid succession than usual, but he’d come out the other end of it closer to Ronan than before. With his friends knowing the truth, with secrets shared between him and Ronan, with a weight off his shoulders secure in the knowledge that someone really _got_ him.

They kept walking, passing Zonko’s, and Adam gave Ronan a sideways look just as he turned, something in his hands.

Ronan handed him a wrapped parcel. Brown paper and red twine, rectangular and heavy at the base, lumped and crowded at the top.

“What’s this?” Adam asked, holding it up suspiciously. A smile threatened to creep across his face. Ronan shrugged and threw a wide kick at a stone on the ground, sending it skittering down the road. “I thought you didn’t get me anything.”

Ronan pulled a face. “I do every year.”

“Not with your name on it,” Adam said.

“Do you see a tag?”

Adam laughed and shook his head, flipping the parcel in his hands. Ronan finally circled around back to Adam, walking close to him so their shoulders pressed together.

“I can show you the basics of unwrapping paper,” Ronan said, “if that’s too complicated for you.”

Adam pulled the string free. The twine easily fell open when he tugged on the bow, and he wondered if Ronan or Blue had tied it. Probably Ronan alone, he wouldn’t want to ask. Adam smiled even more and gingerly unfolded the paper.

Something leaped at his face.

Adam reeled back and Ronan cackled. He only recognized that the fist-sized creature clinging to his cheek was a chocolate frog once he’d yanked it off. It twisted and slipped from his hands, hopping away in the snow.

“ _Ronan!”_

Adam tried to catch it, but it jumped into a drift and was gone.

Ronan laughed even harder. He shoved Ronan’s side, and Ronan willingly stumbled off the sidewalk, still laughing, before careening back into Adam.

“You could have warned me.”

“I could’ve,” Ronan agreed. Adam couldn’t muster up the energy to even pretend to be annoyed, too overcome with the rare, bright grin on Ronan’s face. He looked at the items still left.

There were small, loose things crowded together over a book. The card that must’ve come with the frog, _Severus Snape,_ because Ronan knew he hated him. And then another, underneath. _Newt Scamander,_ because Ronan knew he loved him. Snape was gone, but a tiny Scamander grinned up at him with a baby occamy on his shoulder, its long body draped around his neck. He ducked his head and gave Adam a small wave. Adam whispered a ‘hullo’ back that Ronan laughed at.

He pocketed the cards and found a game of Exploding Snap, and a bundle of smoke bombs disguised as coins, finally getting to what seemed to be Ronan’s serious gift. A paperback _Alice in Wonderland,_ with words scribbled out and replaced to say _Adam in Cabeswater_ instead.

He flipped the book open. Skimmed pages and pictures. Every name had been replaced-- not in black ink, like on the cover, but smoothly changed out by magic. Adam as Alice, the rest of them as various characters he didn’t linger long enough to discern, too caught up in the final alteration. In the place of drawings of Alice, moving pictures were pasted down.

Adam and Gansey, round-cheeked and small and smiling, playing wizard’s chess with a fire beside them. Adam and a half-solid Noah wearing silly hats, circa third year. Adam and Blue with their arms around each others' shoulders, victoriously holding up their brooms. Adam, Gansey, and Blue all with headlamps and spelunking gear, Noah holding up a peace sign and hovering in the corner of the picture. Countless pictures, spanning years and events and some things Adam barely remembered until he saw the evidence.

He got to the last page. There, finally, were exactly two pictures with Ronan in them.

Second Year, shortly after Adam and him had first met. Sitting on the floor of the Ravenclaw Common Room, Ronan with his arms crossed and Adam saying something and laughing, his hands thrown up in the air. He remembered Gansey being behind the camera.

Then a picture from the Queermas party. Adam with his wand in hand, spelling ornaments to float around the kitchens. Ronan with his arm around Adam’s waist, smiling, just slightly, and staring at him like Adam had hung the moon.

“You are. . .the sappiest person on this earth,” Adam said, at a loss for better words. He looked up at Ronan, positive that he appeared completely awestruck. He let it show on his face-- he wanted Ronan to know.

“Takes one to know one.”

Adam couldn’t fight the smile breaking across his face. He jumped on Ronan, prioritizing the need to hug him right that second over making sure his new treasures stayed out of the snow.

"You,” Adam started, kissing Ronan’s forehead, “are,” then his cheeks, “so,” his nose, “adorable.”

“Am not,” Ronan grumbled. But Adam kissed his lips then, and Ronan kissed him back, his arms tight around Adam’s waist. “You love it.”

“I love _you,”_ Adam said. He hadn’t said it enough. He’d never have said it enough until it failed to make Ronan so awestruck every time.

Ronan pulled back enough to look him in the eyes. They’d faced so much together. The best and worst of the world, Hogwarts, of the good and evil in people and creatures and sentient forests. They’d faced it all and done it together and made it out alive and kicking. And it was not over. Their story was far, far from over-- but Adam was happy. He knew it, instinctively and thoroughly. He had found the people that made him happy, and everything was going to be alright.

“I love you, too,” Ronan said.

Adam kissed him again, and it felt like flying and Cabeswater and magic. Everything was going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my wack GSA and the art department for inspiring the Christmas party scene. Leave a comment or kudos if you liked it, and happy holidays folks!


End file.
